Thursday, February 25, 2010

Recollections (part 3)

OG's guitar upgrade came about some 3-4 years back. We were 'shopping' in Yudi Kwok's (another guitar afficionado, who followed his passion and opened a guitar shop in little Singapore. Good for him!) shop located in Bukit Timah Shopping Centre, and was introduced to a Spanish luthier called Juan Hernandez. Yudi let us try several guitars (of various grades and prices) from this luthier, and it was clear to us that although the quality may not be as consistent as we'd like, there are certainly some gems to be found amongst his make. In particular, OG liked a spruce top guitar and made up his mind to get it almost there and then.

Meanwhile, Alex was contented to strum along to the tunes of the broken Esteve (Chin Yuen eventually retrieved his broken Bernabe from Alex). Kevin? Well, let's just say he was happy to pull the strings of any guitar as long as there are still 6 strings attached to it! ( I recall that at one point, he was even playing on my Yamaha CG110, which sported some venerable strings, brown with age and history. Needless to say, his tone was "one kind!" )

Alex's big break came when we got news of a Kohno No.30 available for sale. This news came from Charles - a luthier hobbyist who I'd contacted sometime back to do some repair/repolish work on my Kohno. At the price it was selling for, we felt it was a very good opportunity for Alex to finally own a decent guitar to call his own. After much persuasion and peer-pressuring from OG and myself, the barber decided to go test the guitar and after another round of hesitation and peer-pressuring, he finally "settled down" with his new-found 'wife'. Alex's Kohno is very similar to my own, except that it was in considerably better condition and possibly looked like how my guitar was when I first got it from Michael Ho (which shows how bo-chap I am as an owner...something which I hope to improve on as the owner of a new Ruck guitar). I guess it is fair to say that he is enjoying the guitar as much as he should - he even bought a new cool-looking case for it!

Finally, to our quartet's resident DIVA, Kevin Ow. Due to his diva-ish requirements (e.g. must have 7 strings, must feel heavy, he must like the sound/looks, within a certain budget, etc.) OG and I had to practically source the instrument and present it to his highness for approval. Fortunately, we found out that Yudi was able to contact the Asturias factory, and commission a custom-made order for a 7-string beauty befitting our diva. It took some effort on our part to constantly negotiate and cross-check between both buyer and seller, but eventually the deal was done! Our Diva now plays on a custom-made 7-string baby from Asturias. He is happy plucking away at those low register notes and giving the quartet an extra edge when it comes to taking on scores which require a lower register (typical for many LAGQ scores).

2 Comments:

down the road, you will have have to source a 30 year old wife for alex (hey, the single girls in my batch all still 30!) and with the advancement in dna technology, I'm sure some enterprising chap will come up with a 7 breasted female sumo wrestler for LS.